


the four families of harry potter

by nitrogenoxygen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Harry Potter Deserves Better, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, M/M, Mirror of Erised, Not Beta Read, Seriously how do i tag, btw the premise and a lot of this was done at eleven at night so yeah, how do i tag in this fandom, if the tense changes just ignore it i'm not used to present tense, not as angsty as i'd usually go but like it's there, that scene was heart-wrenching i blame everything bad that's ever happened in my life on that scene, there's really no structure or continuity with this by the way like idk what's going on, this is so bad harry sweetie i'm so sorry you deserve better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23643991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitrogenoxygen/pseuds/nitrogenoxygen
Summary: or: harry's life is depressing and so i decided to write about it in an effort to ignore quarantine boredom and my schoolwork.this is my first harry potter fanfiction in a very long time so if it's ooc or bad (which it definitely is) then go on easy on me pls
Relationships: Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Dursley Family & Harry Potter, Harry Potter & James Potter & Lily Evans Potter, Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Harry Potter & Weasley Family, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Petunia Evans Dursley/Vernon Dursley, Sirius Black & Harry Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Harry Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 57





	the four families of harry potter

Harry knows his aunt and uncle don't want him.

After all, they tell him that every day. Not always through words, though often it is, his uncle red in the face and waving his fist in the air whenever Harry makes the tiniest of mistakes, shouting about his no-good parents and how they'd gotten themselves killed in a car crash and he'd been quite literally dumped on their doorstep. Sometimes Harry will come into the house after a long, sweltering hot day in the garden pulling weeds, and he'll see Petunia smoothing down a few unruly strands of blond on Dudley's bulbous head with a look of utter adoration on her face. Then she'll turn to him and that adoration will be gone, replaced with a disdainful curl of her lip, a wrinkle of her thin nose. _You are not wanted here_ , her face screams as she orders him not to track dirt on her freshly vacuumed carpet. _You are not wanted here_.

He doesn't particularly want them either, but they're all he's got. So what if sometimes they leave him to starve in his cupboard as punishment? So what if Uncle Vernon sometimes clips Harry's head when he waves his great meaty fists around? So what if Aunt Petunia orders him around like he's their servant instead of their nephew? He's got a roof over his head and food on his plate. His cupboard is small and dusty and cramped but it's _his_ ; a handful of plastic toy soldiers smuggled from Dudley's second room and kept on proud display on the shelf, crumbling crayons smudging red and purple and blue on the unpolished wood, a single grimy lightbulb dangling over his head. His cupboard is entirely, undoubtedly his, and it's tiny and pathetic but he's proud of it all the same, this precious space he's been able to carve out of a house filled with hate.

His parents are dead. Clearly they had no friends who wanted to take Harry in since no one has ever come to rescue him. The Dursleys are his only family.

But they don't act like a family to him. This is the part he can't understand. He sees the way they fawn over Dudley, buying him sweets and letting him run free around the neighbourhood with his gang of other spoiled mean kids, always complimenting him on his achievements however minor, standing next to him for family photos with hands on his thick shoulders looking so incredibly _proud_ of their son. But their loving gazes turn sour and resentful when they fall to him, and they don't praise him no matter how hard he tries, bringing back stellar report cards and test results far above Dudley's scraping pass. Eventually, he learns to stop trying at all.

They don't even let him into the photos. There are many photos scattered around the house, and none of them bear his face. It's like he doesn't exist.

A part of him hates them for it, resents them with a bitter, blazing passion for never treating him like their nephew, like their relative, like another human being. But it takes energy to be angry, and he hasn't got a lot of that, so mainly he's just sad. Sad, and tired, and fed up.

Upon his eighteenth birthday, when everything educational is done and dusted, he will leave the Dursleys in the past and never return. His future is a muddled mess of anxiety and uncertainty, but one thing he knows for sure is that his so-called family will have no part in it.

Harry stares at parents buying their children ice-cream, parents hugging their children on the sidewalk, parents doing things his parents might have done with him if only they'd lived to be able to, and turns away.

When he walks through the door into 4 Privet Drive, it is cold and loveless and empty. 

He walks to his cupboard, lays down on the thin lumpy mattress, and dreams about family.

* * *

The Weasleys are the definition of family.

Seven children, all vastly different and unique, complete with a warm kind-faced mother and a tired but fond father. Somehow he's been welcomed into the fold as well through his bond with Ron, and it's bright and cheerful and very, very overwhelming. His whole life he'd been stuck with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, all of whom despised him for a reason he now knew, and suddenly he's being rescued from out of his barred window and taken on a flying car to a house Aunt Petunia would faint at just the sight of. The Burrow is a frenzied mess both inside and out, building almost leaning to the side with rooms protruding at odd intervals, with the floors cluttered and chatter filling the air. His aunt would refuse to step foot inside this shambles of a house, and that just makes Harry love it more for all its endearing quirks and oddities.

He had always felt alone at 4 Privet Drive, curled up in his cupboard with only his stolen knickknacks for company, but it is impossible to feel alone in the Burrow. It seems like everywhere he looks there is a person with bright red hair, and even when there's no one around the feeling of companionship lingers in the air. He falls asleep on a proper bed in a proper room, Ron snoring away next to him just like at Hogwarts, and feels an aching sort of warmth bloom in his chest, so potent he might burst.

The Weasleys don't yell at their children for small mistakes. Mrs Weasley yells at the twins for the Ford Anglia incident, but Harry thinks she's pretty justified in that scenario. The Weasleys are incredibly proud of Percy for being a prefect, even though his siblings like to tease him. Even their teasing isn't harsh, and they never chased after him or hit him like Dudley used to do. He gets a loaded plate at every mealtime, often more than one, and when he looks at the other children's portions, they're the same size if not smaller. Every night he falls asleep with a full stomach and content smile on his face. Every night he falls asleep feeling somehow happier than the previous one.

He waits for the cold glares to start coming in, for the affection to be replaced with derision as it always has been, for the Weasleys to realise he is not someone to be wanted, but it never comes. They shower him with love and slowly push the festering doubts out of sight.

Hogwarts is his home, but he thinks the Burrow might be another one of his few, precious places, tiny pockets of safety in a world that can't decide whether to hate him or love him. _You are wanted here_ , it whispers as he trails his fingers along the wooden walls, breathing in the sense of comfort that permeates through the air. _You are wanted here_. _You are welcome here_. The Weasleys embrace him with open arms, accept him into their home and into their family, all without hesitation or an ulterior motive. They see Harry, the lost and lonely boy with round glasses and untameable hair and thin limbs who clings to their sixth son and his first friend, not Harry Potter, the saviour of the wizarding world. 

They are not his family by blood, but when has blood ever worked out for him? His parents, gone, perhaps not by the car crash story he'd been fed as a child but still gone all the same. His aunt, uncle, and cousin, all blinded by their single-minded hatred of magic, and that tiny shred of possibility had vanished he'd first entered their house, a crying orphaned baby they'd never managed to love. He doesn't even know where his grandparents are. 

The Weasleys are not his family by blood, but they love him and he loves them and that's all he's ever needed.

But he can't stay. He's shuttled off to the Dursleys every summer and can only hope to have a few beautiful moments with the Weasleys. 

It's better this way. They won't get sick of him, won't begin to resent him for taking up their time and resources. It's better for them to be an almost-family, a not-quite family, because he's not got the best track record when it comes to family, and the Weasleys are something he doesn't want to lose, doesn't want to ruin.

It's better this way.

* * *

Sirius Black comes charging into his life and flips his world around.

Turns out his parents did have friends willing to take him on, only one was a presumed-dead traitor, one was a werewolf, and one was in prison. But now his godfather is here, dressed in a ragged and torn Azkaban uniform with unkempt hair and a wild look on his face but _here_ , choosing Harry, wanting to live with Harry, wanting Harry. 

And then the rat slips through their fingers and the dementors come swooping in and that brief flicker of hope is extinguished just as quickly as it was lit. Nothing ever works out for him. Of course it was too good to be true. His chance at a family, at a connection to his parents, is snatched away by the cruel whims of destiny, who is determined to relieve him of every bit of golden, glowing happiness he manages to scavenge. Sirius flies off into the night on the back of a hippogriff and Harry watches him go.

He doesn't fully leave, though, and for that Harry is grateful. Sirius hides on some tropical island and writes letters, words filled with genuine care, and he can feel his heart swell as he hugs the letter to his chest, this beautiful reminder that there is someone else who loves him. He even comes up, abandons his safe hiding spot, to live in a cold and miserable cave and live off rats, just to be closer to Harry when the tournament mess rears its ugly head. Sirius is willing to endure those rough conditions, the increased likelihood of being caught, just to be there for him.

Then fifth year comes around and the dementor incident happens and Harry finally gets a taste of what it would be like to live with Sirius, to live with his family. Because Sirius is his family, by sort-of blood and definitely by choice, and he has never been happier to leave 4 Privet Drive behind and go to 12 Grimmauld Place. The house itself is dark and gloomy despite the Order's presence and their best attempts at cleaning, but Sirius is there, his godfather is there, and that's enough. He hugs Sirius, feels his arms encircle his shoulders to hug him back, and Professor Lupin stands next to them with a small fond smile playing at his lips, and that's enough.

It's hard to forget, however, that in another world, in a perfect world, they would've been Uncle Padfoot and Uncle Moony. He suspects it's hard for them to forget that as well.

But in this ugly, imperfect world, Uncle Moony is Professor Lupin and Uncle Padfoot is Sirius, his godfather who arrived too late, and he loves them but it's not the same. He loves them _so much_ but they weren't there when he needed them, when he cried himself to sleep in his cupboard with a growling stomach and a red mark on his face and the harsh, bitter belief that there was no one in the world who loved him. Harry is older now, people are here now, but his childhood hangs over him like a dark, looming cloud, and lightning strikes in the form of Vernon's pudgy hands and roaring voice, Petunia's sneering disdain, Dudley's mocking taunts. They left him once, and he wants to believe they won't leave him again, but beliefs, like people, do not always survive in wartime.

He loves them but there's a chasm between them that he can't cross. Sirius slips up and calls him James sometimes and that reinforces the gap, the distance that neither of them want but neither of them can dispel. Remus looks at him with a tired face and looks sad when Harry calls him 'Professor Lupin' and wears clothes dull and fraying with age. There are monsters in Sirius's eyes and dreams, years in Azkaban with neverending exposure to dementors taking its toll on his mind, and Harry wants to help but he doesn't know how and he's not exactly equipped to help with something he doesn't understand. 

Sometimes, though, he sees the family they could have been. When Sirius's eyes are free of nightmares and Harry huddles into his side, relishing in the arm draped around his shoulders promising safety and security, and Remus and Sirius's hands are intertwined, gazes soft with affection, he can see Uncle Padfoot, wild grins and carefree laughter, and Uncle Moony, gentle and kind, the exhaustion drained from his face. He sees a life filled with love from the very beginning; Sirius and Remus taking him in, Pettigrew behind bars, running and flying and laughing, always laughing, always happy and never alone. That world is beautiful, but it is not his, and in the end, the shadows return to Sirius's eyes, and Remus's face is always tired.

That world is not his, and this world is not theirs either, because Sirius falls through the veil and he _screams_ , the sound scraping at the walls of his throat, harsh and choked and horrified. Sirius is not meant to fall, he is meant to live, he is meant to grow old with Remus and hug him when he wants to be held and love him for all the years he couldn't. He isn't meant to die, he isn't meant to fall through that stupid veil and leave him alone, and he waits for Sirius to pop back out and laugh at his best prank yet, he waits for Sirius to be alive because he's not sure what he'll do if he's not.

Sirius doesn't come back. He wonders why he didn't anticipate this, didn't expect this, because of course he can't have Sirius, of course he can't have this one precious thing. He chases after Bellatrix Lestrange and curses her and feels empty because not even killing Sirius's murderer will bring him back. He trashes Dumbledore's office and begs Nearly Headless Nick for answers and his godfather is _gone_. Gone, and it's all his fault no matter what anyone tells him because it was him who fell for the vision, him who rallied his friends to the Ministry, and him who lured Sirius to his death. He wonders how Remus can even look at him; twelve years apart, and he's just cut their newfound time short because that's what he does and that's what he's always done. 

Maybe this is his destiny; to love people, and then watch them die.

* * *

For ten years of his life, he never sees his parents' faces. Memories made as a one-year-old don't last, and any questions are rebuffed or answered with scathing remarks. For ten years of his life, all he knows is that his parents had crashed the car while driving drunk, leading to their deaths and his placement with his aunt and uncle. He knows their names and nothing else. Not what they looked like, not what they did for a living, not even if they loved him or not. For ten years of his life, they are strangers.

He loves them even though he doesn't know them because they are his parents and kids are meant to love their parents, but he also hates them a bit for dying and leaving him alone. Whenever he thinks of them, he is ambivalent, torn between loving the idea of them and hating the reality of them. Most of the time he doesn't think of them at all, too busy trying to survive in the Dursley household.

Then, of course, he finds out about magic. 

One second he is tiny, scrawny Harry Potter, quiet and odd and an easy target, the next second he is Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, only known survivor of the killing curse, saviour of Magical Britain. He goes from being a freak to being a hero. And suddenly his parents aren't just strangers, hazy shapes in his mind that he can't recall. They're heroes as well, who died not in a mere car crash but fighting against Voldemort, protecting him until the last breath.

But there are still no pictures. The shadows over their faces don't go away and he doesn't think about them more than he needs to because they're still dead and magic can't change that. The world thinks he's a hero, but really he's the same orphaned freak from the Dursleys, small and thin and doing things you're not meant to do.

Everything changes when he finds the Mirror of Erised.

Erised. _Desire._ It's obvious, really, but he doesn't notice, doesn't care, too absorbed with what stares back at him when he gazes into the mirror. He is the only person in the room but he sees at least ten faces in the mirror, two people standing right behind him with others in the gaps between, smiling faces sharp and clear in the glass. 

The woman beside him has long red hair and green eyes just like his. Glistening tears trickle down her pale face, but her smile remains steady, wide and filled with affection. One hand is curled around his shoulder, and he can almost feel it pressing against his skin in real life, an invisible weight. The man next to her has an arm around her shoulders, and he has the same hair as Harry, messy and wild, strands sticking out in all directions. Round glasses are perched on his nose, and like the woman, he has a hand on mirror-Harry's shoulder.

At some point he had moved closer to the mirror, and now he stands with his nose almost pressed against the smooth, stainless glass. 

"Mum? Dad?" His voice quivers, so quiet he can barely hear himself, but the two people can hear him perfectly because they nod, still smiling. When he looks at the other people in the mirror, he sees small parts of himself, little qualities he got from them; other people with his green eyes, other people with his nose, his mouth, his face, even his knees.

His family. He is looking at his family. The tears come unbidden, spilling from his eyes and down his cheeks, but he pays that no mind, too absorbed in the faces of the parents he can't remember, the ancestors whose names he doesn't even know. Lily and James Potter stare back at him and he etches their smiles into his memory, drinking in the love so clear on their faces like a man without water, like a boy who lived ten years of his life without anyone to love him. 

Eventually he has to leave, as he always does, and the mirror turns out to be a cursed artefact, luring people in with their heart's desire and trapping them with its image. He thinks of the yearning, aching hunger he felt when he was stood in front of the mirror, wanting nothing more than to fall through the glass and be with his family, willing to stay there forever if it meant his parents kept looking at him like they did, and can very easily see how people could waste away while standing there.

He gets more pieces of Lily and James Potter as he grows up; a photo album from Hagrid at the end of his first year at Hogwarts, filled with moving images of their youthful, smiling faces, and snippets of their voices while under the dementor's trance in his third year, yelling in fear as Voldemort came to kill them. Facing a dementor is unpleasant and should be avoided, but Harry almost wants to keep throwing himself at the black-cloaked figures if it means hearing his parents, hearing his father shout for them to run, hearing his mother plead with Voldemort to take her instead. He feels the fear, the darkness, the suffocating despair that comes with being in the proximity of dementors, but when all is said and done he also feels a tiny sliver of warmth. His parents loved him enough to die for him, and now he knows that for certain.

The Priori Incantatem at Little Hangleton's graveyard shakes things up. Voldemort shoots a killing curse at him and he throws back a disarming spell, frantic and desperate, and somehow it works. The two spells connect in a shower of bright sparks, glowing golden thread joining the two wands, and ghostly figures emerge from the tip of Voldemort's yew stick. His parents are the last two to burst from the wand, looking exactly as they did in the mirror and telling him to grab Cedric, grab the Cup, and run. He nods, arms trembling with effort as he keeps his spell going, but he can't help staring at them, hovering in front of him, grey and translucent but _there_ , ready to save him again.

The Resurrection Stone in what would've been his seventh year is even more heart-breaking. He opens the snitch, turns the stone three times, and they are standing there, as grey as they had been in the graveyard but speaking to him, comforting him, reassuring him. His hand falls through his mother's when they simultaneously reach out at each other and his chest tightens, but they are there for him at his final moments and that's more than enough, more than he ever expected.

"Until the very end," his father says, his mother smiling beside him, and Harry has never felt more loved.

To his surprise, he doesn't die, but he treasures the memory of his parents and their words all the same. And when the urgency of war is no longer pressing against his shoulders, he visits their graves in Godric's Hollow and lays his hands on their headstones, traces the engraved names and dates. He breaths in, out, and feels their love.

His parents.

His family.


End file.
